Our practical dog beach packing checklist, plus the dog travel gear we actually use and recommend.
Taking your dog to the beach sounds pretty simple.
Dog. Leash. Beach. Done. 😂
And technically, you could leave it at that.
But after quite a few beach adventures with our dogs, we’ve learned that a little preparation can make the difference between a relaxing day by the ocean and one spent wishing you’d brought the thing sitting at home in the garage.
So, what should you bring to the beach for your dog?
Here’s what we consider when packing for our own dog-friendly beach days.
🐾 What to Pack for a Dog-Friendly Beach Day
You won’t necessarily need everything on this list for every trip. A quick walk along the shoreline is very different from spending several hours on the sand.
Use this as a starting point and adjust it for your dog, your beach, the weather and what you plan to do while you’re there.
🎒 Beach Basics
☐ 6-foot leash — Leash rules vary by beach, so we always bring a standard leash.
☐ Poop bags — Bring more than you think you’ll need. Your dog knows when you’ve packed exactly one. 😂
☐ Pack-it-out bag — Not every beach has a conveniently located trash can. Having a separate bag for trash and used poop bags can make the trip back to the car much more pleasant.
☐ Absorbent dog towel or shammy — Wet dog + sand + car upholstery. Enough said. 😂
☐ Portable rinse or shower — Handy for rinsing sand, saltwater and dirty paws when showers or dog washes aren’t available.
☐ Beach tie-out, where permitted — Helpful when we’re settled in one spot, but a tie-out is never a substitute for active supervision. Always check current beach rules before using one.
☀️ Safety & Comfort Items
☐ Plenty of fresh water — Never assume drinking water will be available, and don’t let your dog rely on ocean water for a drink.
☐ Dog water bottle and/or portable bowl — We actually use three different water setups depending on where we’re going and how many dogs are coming.
☐ SPF/UPF-rated beach umbrella or reliable shade — If we’re staying awhile, shade for our dogs is non-negotiable.
☐ Waterproof, sand-proof beach blanket with stakes — A comfortable place for everyone to settle that doesn’t immediately become part of the beach. 😂
☐ Dog shoes when conditions warrant — Useful when parking lots, pavement, sand or other surfaces aren’t something we want our dogs walking across with bare paws.
☐ Cooling towel and/or cooling mat — Depending on your dog and the conditions, cooling gear can be useful in addition to fresh water, shade and supervision.
☐ Dog life jacket when the activity or conditions warrant one — We use one for water activities where we want added buoyancy, visibility and another way to assist our dog if necessary.
☐ Collar or harness with current ID — Check the phone number on your dog’s tag and make sure their microchip contact information is current before traveling.
☐ Dog first-aid kit — We always travel with one and hope we never need it. Prepare for the things you hope never happen.
☐ Necessary medications — Don’t forget anything your individual dog may need while you’re away from home.
🎒🐾 Want to Pack Like Our Pup? Here’s What We Actually Use
Now for the gear. 😂
The products below are things we’ve actually purchased, packed and used with our own dogs. We’ll tell you what we like about them and, when we don’t have a product we’re comfortable recommending, we’ll tell you that too.
❤️🐾 A Quick Note About Our Recommendations
Some of our favorite dog products have lasted for years—only for us to discover that the small company that made them is no longer in business.
When that happens, we’re not going to pick a replacement based solely on online reviews just so we have something to link to.
We’ll research. We’ll try things. We’ll see how they hold up in real life.
And when we find something we’d confidently use with our own dogs, that’s when we’ll tell you about it.
Because an affiliate link isn’t what earns a product a place here.
Using it does. 🐾
🐾 A Quick Paws-Up About Affiliate Links
Some links below are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We are also a K9 Ops USA affiliate and may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through our links. Affiliate compensation does not influence the products we choose to recommend.
1. 🦮 K9 Ops Pro-Tech BioThane 6-Foot Leash
A good 6-foot leash seems to be something we need over and over again when traveling with our dogs.
We’ve tried plenty. Some were bulky. Some felt flimsy. And apparently a few looked delicious enough that our dogs thought chewing through them during the adventure was perfectly reasonable.
Oh, brother. 😂
The K9 Ops Pro-Tech BioThane 3/4-inch, 6-foot leash is the one we keep coming back to.
It’s strong without feeling overly bulky, waterproof and—one of our favorite features after a dirty beach day—easy to clean. Sand, mud and water can simply be rinsed or wiped away.
That’s why this one has earned a regular place in our dog-travel gear.
👉 Check Out the K9 Ops Pro-Tech BioThane Leash:
https://k9opsusa.com/products/stock-3-4-pro-tech-biothane-leash?ref=62M1jv4ObPWjK9
2. 🐾 Soggy Doggy Super Shammy — Our “The Dog Is Wet Again” Towel
We love, love, love our Soggy Doggy Super Shammy.
Mountains, oceans, beaches, lakes, rivers, puddles and pools—we’ve used this thing just about everywhere. 🌊🐾
The hand pockets on each end make it much easier to dry a wet, squirming dog, and we can run it underneath them in a back-and-forth motion to dry their belly and underside.
At the beach, it does double duty by helping us remove sand before the dogs climb into the car.
Then we toss it in the washing machine and it’s ready for another adventure.
It’s not really our beach towel, pool towel or rainy-day towel anymore.
It’s our “the dog is wet again” towel. 😂🐶💦
👉 Check Out the Soggy Doggy Super Shammy on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4cY4uTl
3. 🚿🐾 Kurgo Mud Dog Travel Shower
This little attachment turns an ordinary plastic water bottle into a portable dog shower, and it’s one of those simple pieces of gear that has turned out to be surprisingly useful.
Although it can be used to rinse more of your dog, we primarily use ours for one particularly troublesome area:
Paws. Lots and lots of dirty paws. 😂
At the beach, it’s great for rinsing sand and saltwater from our dogs’ feet before they climb back into the car. We also use it after hikes for dirt and mud.
We usually pair ours with a 16-ounce water bottle, which keeps the whole setup small enough to toss into our dog-travel gear.
We even keep one with our dog first-aid supplies for another use we’ll share in our future Dog First-Aid Kit article.
👉 Check Out the Kurgo Mud Dog Travel Shower on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4gZxcnT
4. 🏖️🐾 Royal Paw Dog Tie-Out Stake & Cable
For beach days when we’re settling in one spot, we use a Royal Paw tie-out stake with a 10-foot cable.
We chose a bright red stake because we wanted it to be easier for people to see—and hopefully less likely to become a beach-day tripping hazard. 😂 We also chose the 10-foot cable because we didn’t want an unnecessarily large roaming area around our beach setup.
Here’s another little thing we do:
We leave our dog’s regular leash attached while they’re connected to the tie-out.
When it’s time to leave, we can disconnect the tie-out cable and we’re ready to go rather than fumbling around with an unleashed dog.
And this part is important:
A tie-out is not a babysitter.
Our dogs are actively supervised when using one, and we check the rules before anchoring anything at a beach.
👉 Check Out the Royal Paw Dog Tie-Out Stake on Amazon:
https://link.amazon/B0aI5JfbO
👉 Check Out the Royal Paw 10-Foot Tie-Out Cable on Amazon:
https://link.amazon/B0aQ10CUW
5. 🦺🐾 Ruffwear Float Coat Dog Life Jacket
When an adventure calls for our dogs to wear life jackets, we use the Ruffwear Float Coat.
For us, a dog life jacket is safety equipment—not a doggie fashion statement.
There are plenty of adorable life jackets out there, and some cost less. But when we’re choosing something intended to help keep one of our dogs afloat, cute isn’t one of our deciding factors. Safety is.
We chose the Float Coat because we wanted a life jacket designed for buoyancy, a secure adjustable fit and a sturdy handle that gives us another way to assist our dog if necessary.
And ours is bright orange for a reason. 🧡
If one of our dogs is in the water, we don’t want them blending into it. We want to be able to spot them quickly, so high visibility matters to us.
Even a strong swimmer can become tired or encounter waves or currents, which is why we don’t consider swimming ability alone a reason to skip a life jacket when conditions or activities warrant one.
And just like every other piece of safety equipment we use:
A life jacket doesn’t replace supervision.
The Float Coat may cost more than some of the cute alternatives you’ll find, but this is one area where we’re comfortable spending more for a product we’ve used and trust.
When we’re talking about our dogs’ safety, saving a few dollars isn’t our priority.
🐾 Fit matters, too: Whatever life jacket you choose, make sure it’s properly fitted to your individual dog and doesn’t restrict normal movement.
👉 Check Out the Ruffwear Float Coat Dog Life Jacket on Amazon:
https://link.amazon/B0aXCtRjX
6. 💦🐶 Three Ways We Carry Water
Apparently one dog water solution wasn’t enough for us. 😂
But there’s actually a reason we own three. They work better for different kinds of adventures.
🐾 Kurgo Gourd 2-in-1 Dog Travel Water Bottle — Grab-and-Go Favorite
This is the one we reach for when we’re walking around a harbor, exploring town, heading to the beach or carrying our gear with us.
It’s a water bottle and small drinking bowl in one, so there’s no separate bowl to pack.
👉 Check Out the Kurgo Gourd on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4gWI7P9
🐾 Kurgo Splash Free Wander Dog Water Bowl — Car & Road-Trip Favorite
This is especially handy in the car.
Its design helps keep more of the water where it belongs instead of decorating the inside of our vehicle with it. 😂 It’s also flexible, so we can scrunch it down and tuck it into our travel gear.
👉 Check Out the Kurgo Splash Free Wander Bowl on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4iji8nt
🐾 Ruff Land Water Hole — Big-Drink & Multiple-Dog Favorite
Sometimes a little travel bowl isn’t enough.
If we’re traveling with several dogs—or one who seems convinced we’re experiencing a worldwide water shortage—this is when we bring our Ruff Land Water Hole. 😂
It holds a much larger supply of water than our portable options, so we like it for the car, longer outings and trips with multiple dogs.
It’s obviously not what we’re carrying around on a casual walk, but that’s exactly why we have different options.
Three water setups. Three different jobs.
7. 🏖️ ZAZE Waterproof, Sand-Proof Beach Blanket With Stakes
This is one of those items that’s technically for the humans too—but the dogs certainly don’t seem to mind. 😂
Our oversized beach blanket gives everyone a place to settle away from some of the hot, wet sand. We especially like having stakes to help keep it in place when the ocean breeze decides the blanket should be having an adventure of its own.
👉 Check Out the ZAZE Beach Blanket on Amazon:
https://link.amazon/B09rrMDcI
8. 🐾 Kurgo Blaze Cross Dog Shoes
Dog shoes are something we like having available even when we don’t expect to need them.
Hot surfaces, rough terrain, snow and unfamiliar ground can all create situations where we’d rather have something between our dogs’ paws and the surface below them.
We’ve tried different dog shoes, but one reason we chose the Kurgo Blaze Cross Dog Shoes is wonderfully simple:
They stay on our dogs. 😂
Anyone who has watched a dog boot launch itself down a trail understands why that’s important.
One ordering detail worth knowing: they’re sold as a pair.
Our dogs, unfortunately for our wallets, came standard with four feet. 😂 So covering all four paws requires two pairs.
We don’t use dog shoes to justify keeping our dogs out when conditions aren’t appropriate. They’re simply another option we like having available when conditions warrant them.
👉 Check Out the Kurgo Blaze Cross Dog Shoes on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4yxoaFL
9. 🌊🐶 Waterproof Dog Collar — We’re Still Looking!
We have a waterproof collar we’ve used and loved for years, but unfortunately the small U.S. company that made it, Packt, is no longer in business.
And our collars?
They’re still going.
Which is wonderful for us and terribly inconvenient when we’re trying to recommend one to you. 😂
So we’re back on the hunt.
We’re currently researching and trying other waterproof BioThane-style collars, but we haven’t found one we’re comfortable putting our name behind yet.
Rather than choose a replacement based solely on online reviews, we’re going to wait until we’ve actually used one ourselves.
Check back. When we find one that earns a place in our dog-travel gear, we’ll update this section.
🔎🐾 Don’t See a Recommendation?
That probably means we’re still looking.
There are other things we pack for certain beach trips—shade, cooling gear, paw care and more—but we’re not going to recommend a particular product simply because we can find one online.
If we haven’t personally used something we’re confident recommending, we’d rather say:
“We don’t have one for you yet.”
We’re always researching and trying new gear, and we’ll continue updating our recommendations as we find products that work well for our dogs in real life.
Because we’d rather have an empty affiliate spot than fill it with something we wouldn’t confidently use ourselves.
🌊🐾 One More Thing Before You Head to the Beach…
Knowing what to pack is only part of planning a great beach day with your dog.
Hot sand and pavement, tides, waves, water conditions, shade, hydration, saltwater, swimming and knowing when conditions simply aren’t right for your dog deserve a conversation of their own.
So we gave them one.
👉 Read Next: Taking Your Dog to the Beach: Practical Safety Tips for a Better Beach Day 🐾🌊
[Add link once published.]
And if you’re specifically wondering how hot pavement and other surfaces can affect your dog’s paws:
👉 Read: How Hot Is Too Hot for Your Dog? Paw, Pavement & Summer Heat Safety 🐾☀️
[Add link once published.]
❤️🐾 Pack What Works for Your Dog
You don’t need every item on this list to have a wonderful day at the beach with your dog.
A short beach walk and an all-day adventure are two very different outings.
Pack for your dog, your plans and the conditions that day.
And if you find us recommending something here, you can know one thing:
It’s here because we’ve actually used it—not because we needed another link. 🐾
🐾 A Quick Paws-Up
Our adventures, recommendations and product experiences are based on our own travels, research and experiences with our dogs. Your experience may be different—and because pet policies, prices, hours, rules and conditions can change, we always recommend confirming current information directly with the destination, business or appropriate official source before you go.
Every dog is different, too. A product, destination or experience that works well for our dogs may not be the right fit for yours. We share what has worked for us to help you make more informed decisions for your own four-legged travel buddy.
Some links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We are also a K9 Ops USA affiliate and may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through our links. Affiliate compensation does not influence the products we choose to recommend.
